Google: Java is running "rudderless"

While speaking at the Red Hat Middleware 2020 virtual conference, Google’s Josh Bloch expressed serious concerns over the direction of Oracle’s recently acquired Java platform. Commenting that it has “appeared rudderless for the last few years”, Bloch went on to say that “technical and licensing disputes over the last few years have been highly detrimental. They’ve sapped the energy of the community and caused plenty of bad press.” Although he was clear to underscore the fact that the issues predate the buyout of Sun Microsystems, Bloch challenged Oracle to “take the lead of Java once again.” Specifically, he would like to see Oracle push out newer versions of the platform at a faster pace, make firm commitment to the swift release of Java 7, bolster support for the Java Community Process, and replace the woefully underpowered Java 2 Micro Edition. Bloch doesn’t believe hope is lost for Java and that “Java will remain a dominant platform in the enterprise space”, but if it doesn’t make the changes now, the King will go from having a cold to being gravely ill.

Lets start with getting Java to work on an iPhone.
I use a VPN for work from home and it doesnt work on the iPhone as it requires Java

alen

your employer doesn’t support the generic VPN software in the iphone? you can even have it connect to a checkpoint firewall if you make changes on the FW side.

OS 4 is supposed to bring more VPN functionality

Sugar Grove

Geez we even have too old a version of Exchange so I cant get my email via exchange. I have to use a web based method.

random

Apple doesn’t allow Java to run on your phone, sorry.

Hollaman

while bg is trying to up the ante on article quality here it will unfortunately be over the heads of most visitors of this site (verizon douchebags asking for jaeger bombs)

NuShrike

Google only cares because so much of their infrastructure and Android is based on Java. Objective-C is started to look like a smarter and longer living choice.

Jarrett

No, mono and .net are kicking ass. C# is a much more refined and well designed language than java and C# is constantly improving.

Java generics anyone?

Sugar Grove

Dude? whos photo? looks like a 70’s version of
“Then came Bronson” an old biker show

(The real Jarrett) Jarrett

Not me if that is what you are thinking. Clearly another Jarrett.

(That 70’s Jarrett) Jarrett

Hehehe.. come on, pass the doob and don’t bogart.

blicket

problem there Jarrett. constantly improving is not a good thing for core language. stability c# is not.

NuShrike

I’m talking about cross-platform and native execution which .NET and its derivatives are not. Objective-C includes Objective-C++ which is much better hybrid, IMO, than .NET. In fact, .NET is a lot about being a fancy wrapper around native APIs … it’s about as bad as MFC bloat.

Of course, you have to go GCC to get support on Microsoft platforms, but at least it’s not a language only Microsoft develops with huge overhead and runtime footprint, and lack of fast and mature ABI compatibility with C/C++. PInvoking is a cop-out as it almost always involves serializing objects across inter-op resulting in huge slow-downs.

Constantly improving == immature in my book.

random

Java excels at server-side application programming, which for a variety of reasons you’d need to be pretty crazy to do in Objective-C. That’s why nobody does does server programming in Objective-C. It’s only really used for just Mac and iPhone apps.

Dave

Aren’t all Android apps written in Java?

MicroNix

Java, as used in the enterprise space, could dry up and vanish today for all I care. The constant, poorly written java apps that require this runtime version, then another requires another runtime and then this one updates the runtime only to f up another java app. ENOUGH JAVA ALREADY! It wouldn’t be so bad if only the latest version was needed to run any Java app, but that’s not the way its working. Cisco, EMC, CA, they all want different specific runtime versions and won’t install unless they are installed. What a mess it creates on one’s computer…

Sir Trashcan

No, not all Android apps are programmed with Java. Google has release NDK (Android Native Development Kit) a long time ago and this enables native C/C++ programming for Android devices.